The Symbol

From Dark City

Symbol.jpg

THIS PLOT IS RESOLVED

Note: This plot is intended for the Geist sphere. That doesn't mean that other people can't potentially get involved, especially if someone reaches out to them, but please try to leave the focus of the plot for Geist and Ghostly Inclined characters.

Summary

A strange symbol is beginning to pop up in seemingly unrelated cases, surrounding death, murder, suicide and even the grave.

Plot Details So Far

  • In February of 2020, Zachariah Talbot exhumed two bodies, that of Bethany and Tracy Turner. Sisters who died in a car accident together. Inside of their caskets their dead bodies seemed to have carved The Symbol into the lid.
  • In May of 2020, Riley Murphy came across crime scene evidence of the Genovese Family where a small street gang of four men seem to have ritualistically committed group suicide. The Symbol was on the wall behind them.
  • In February of 2021 Francis Delaney was murdered. It was discovered during The Man Fortune, that he had become a serial killer, obsessed with The Symbol, until finally he was murdered by sacrificing the bones of the wrong ghost.
  • June 2021 September Mace conveys to Vivienne "Vi" Venturi that Akasha Ravi has the undecaying head of Riley Murphy in her possession. Not only is it refusing to rot, but it's whispering unintelligible words. She also showed Vi a place where animals had come, laid down and died in front of a symbol that formed from cracks in the wall at an old factory.
"Rumor has it if you get this symbol on you, and you die? You can't come back. We had a gal, Riley... she cut it into herself and then... pulled her own fucking body apart. Akasha has her head in her basement. It's not decaying and every once in a while it whispers shit."
  • July 2021 Vivienne “Vi” Venturi made arrangements with Akasha Ravi for Vi , Yuna Harada, Marcus Caulfield-Brooks, and Claude Salazar to be taken to see the disembodied dead of Riley Murphy. The head didn’t do or say anything until Claude draw the symbol on a piece of paper and showed it to the head, then it started whispering in some unknown language. Yuna got the idea of performing Ishtar’s Perfume on the head in order to try to ascertain what happened in the last moments of Riley’s life. The ceremony was successful. They learned that Riley wasn’t in her body any longer when she was killed, she’d been pulled away from her own body. Unfortunately, the ceremony required Yuna to touch the head. While in the trance for the ceremony, Yuna carved the symbol into her own flesh.
"Murphy was a member of the DEA. Investigating drug trafficking, most specifically within the Genovese Family. As Zachariah and I have discovered, she went back to the spot of the crime, a warehouse in Brooklyn where four family members committed ritual suicide under the symbol. She broke in, carved the symbol into her skin, and then began tearing those pieces away. She was caught by the family and killed, shot in the head. It does not appear that her or her Geist put up any fight in this. And with the symbol on her body, it would seem her final death. Save.. of course her talking head. They disposed of her body in pieces and when it was found, it was Zachariah who was given the remains for disposal. And that is what we'd intended to do. But ... then she spoke."
  • In July of 2021, meanwhile, Chinelo Obi and Roman Astakhov revisited the warehouse where Riley Murphy and four men of the Genovese Crime Family committed suicide just a year prior. Roman discovered the warehouse had been taken over by the niece of the crime boss, who harbored plans for turning it into a night club called The Haunt. Chinelo extracted the memories of the Genovese goons' and Riley Murphy's suicide and bottled them for safekeeping. Later investigations online turned up an unsettling anomaly of every possible digital track systematically erased. Videos, websites, links and pictures don't work, accounts shut down. The influencer was even locked out of her own social media accounts and received a strange text from a phone number telling her she'd only get them back when she learned to be quiet.
  • Late July 2021 Yuna Harada and Claude Salazar paid a visit to David Ester at The Last Chapter to show him the Symbol carved into Yuna and see what thoughts he might have. Claude suggested the symbol is representative of a window. Yuna said that’s exactly what it is. She shared more about her vision or memory from Riley and said the line in the center is blue. Claude mumbled off ideas on what the blue could be and when he said “ocean, sky…” Yuna passed out. When she came to, she told them that she got another vision or memory. The window is maybe partially submerged in water. The blue line is where water meets sky. And while she was there she felt the room tilt…almost like a boat capsizing. Claude came into direct contact with Yuna when he carried her after she passed out and the symbol did not spread to him. So it is not spread just by mere touch, though he did not come into contact with the symbol directly.
  • In August of 2021, Chinelo Obi visits the Red House, a safe house for the Genovese Family, and finds an Avernian Gate and its guardian. The guardian tells her the Symbol isn't coming from up here, but from the Underworld.
"This symbol? This ain't from here. This is from THERE." He points to the gate. "It's havoc in there. That symbol is all over. Eating up the masses. Carvin' itself in walls. Makin' folks lose it. Float down the river. Give up the good fight. You go in there sweetheart, and you ain't comin' back. Not through this gate."
  • Later the same month, many of the Sin Eaters gathered for a Bonfire gathering hosted by Uma Szymon. During that gathering they discussed, at length, what they knew so far regarding the Symbol. David Ester and Uma told everything they think the boat represented by the Symbol is one called Freighter and it travels the Ocean of Fragments. They also determined that they don’t think the Symbol is a curse. It is, instead, a cry for help - one they all agreed must be answered.
Uma stared into the fire, "Well it all adds up, doesn't it? The symbol isn't a calling, or at least its not meant to be. It's a revery," she gestured to the fire. "A memory. One apparently that Yuna has relived. One that all of these people, dead or otherwise are trying to recall. You each know that moment when you forget a dream. It's right there, on the tip of your vision, but the harder you look the further it fades. Its maddening. Surely it's enough to create obsessive behavior, especially when the emotion of that memory aligns with it: desperation." Despite her abruptness, Uma did come from the House of Szymon. Her words were syrupy and flowed like poetry. "We see it as a mark, but it's really a death rattle. The last significant moment to someone. We're all a collection of moments. If you think very hard on which one you'd give up last... if you had enough power, that moment would travel the world as its doing now."

Anna's eyes narrowed on Uma, "Then whose memory is it?"
  • October 5th, 2021: The Greenpoint Terminal Market is destroyed, not by explosion or fire... but by age. Upon further investigation by Hector Ramirez, Chinelo Obi, and Sunny Mannattil, they deduce that three occultists have sacrificed a group of women to a Cthonic entity whose very presence has sent everything around it into hyper decay. After tossing the women into the mouth of the beast, they too climbed inside and disappeared back into the Underworld.
    • The Three Summoners (Unknown Woman, Anthony Bruddler, Unknown Man) rented a van to carry their human sacrifices and it was never returned. There is a warrant out for their arrest.
    • They seem to be associated with a River-water infused drug. There is a man named Tony in Brooklyn that is selling the drug at higher end socialite parties for $300 a dose. The same man is practically giving it away in Queens at a local skate park and clubs that allow minors on the sly.
  • October 7th, 2021: Marcus Caulfield-Brooks encountered a Cthonian that was tormenting a neighbor near his apartment in the Lower East Side. The being ran off too fast to be tracked down to a possible entry point from the Underworld.
  • October 10th, 2021: The Haunt is officially opening with a massive launch party. During which two events occur:

1. A young woman overdoses on a strange new drug called Ghost Rider. A clear liquid inside a small glass skull. The Sin-Eaters on the scene immediately recognize it as River water from the Underworld.

  • In the aftermath, Ophelia Moore, used the Oracle to find an assembly line along the banks of a River, dipping glass skulls into the water while Cthonic entities guard the other side of the River. Four hooded figures seem to be in control of a Cthonic snake-like monster that aids in the transport. She also felt as if something took over her, riding her skin. The Oracle also seemed to confirm that the drug was being spread at parties in the city.

2. Angelica Soto warns Chinelo Obi that she believes she's being targeted by other business owners within the neighborhood who do not want The Haunt to open. Minutes later, the outside dock collapses, killing 4 people and injuring dozens. The Haunt closes until further notice. The Symbol inside strengthens with the deaths and an Avernian Gate opens.

  • Chinelo Obi returns to The Haunt to talk with Angelica Soto and learns that the Genovese family have become obsessed with the Symbol and have become far more dangerous than usual. So much so, Angelica is afraid of them. While she doesn't know what the Symbol is, she has knocked down the wall where it appeared and continues to bleed through the paint, but it continues to reappear. During the conversation, she also admits that 1. the Genovese family own the Greenpoint Terminal Market and warns Chinelo not to go there. and 2. she has turned those that sabotaged her opening over to her family and they are likely paying for their actions against the Genovese at the Red House.
  • November 30th, 2021: Wesley Lockwood, Hector Ramirez, Marcus Caulfield-Brooks, Yuna Harada met at the House of Szymon to discuss what they believe to be the cause of the Symbol and the most direct method of handling it. Uma had found an old family journal detailing a similar event in the past. The theory presented is that the Symbol is a manifestation of the dying Kerberoi looking for an heir. It was determined that the most expedient method to save lives would be an Underworld dive to a dominion called The Vault in order to minimize the damage of a transition of power between an old and new Kerberus by seeing how it was done previously.


Sub Plots

Get Involved!

  • How do I engage this plot?: Add yourself to the Count Me In section. Read the IC Rumors below for what information is widely known IC. If it's there, you are safe to assume your character has heard that information either through the IC grapevine off-screen (from the person who posted the info, or from a random no-name NPC who told you when you ran into each other, etc). Figure out from there how your character would react, and do it! If you want to take off-camera downtime actions like research, investigation, asking an NPC for guidance, etc, please put in a ticket.
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  • I was just in a plot scene! Now what? If you have a follow-up, submit a ticket! Even if you don't, it would be great if you could add to the Plot Details and Summary sections above to help keep everyone on the same page with what's being shared IC.
  • How do I connect with others related to this plot: Post below in the Count Me In section, and check out others who have opted into the plot as well. You may also wish to post in #wanted-board.
  • Don't assume everyone knows what you know, even if it was in a public scene. If you have plot detail that isn't listed below, add it.
    • This is the documentation of your IC information sharing. Take ownership of it. Include important information that took place in scenes, even if there is a log. Not everyone reads logs!
  • Do I have to share what I know? Of course not. You're free to operate at any level of shady and secretive that you like, but generally the most people have fun when information-sharing is collaborative, and plot resolution tends to progress a little more quickly. The choice, of course, is yours.

IC Rumors

  • Roman Astakhov - Angelica Soto, Niece of Lucas Soto is renovating the warehouse where Riley Murphy died, into a club.
  • Chinelo Obi - A local Sin-Eater created memories in bottles containing the final moments of the suicide of gangsters that happened in the warehouse. She's willing to surrender it to someone who can glean more information from the denouement than she can.
  • Horace Santos - The vengeful fury has been investigating the death of Riley Murphy, looking into what she investigating and what led to her death. After some leg work he talked with some Mario Chicals to get more details.
    According to Chicals, Riley was down by the docks, in one of the warehouses. A place that had seen a previous police investigation before for a ritual suicide. Four men all stood up around a table and shot each other execution-style at the same exact time. That was like a year ago.
    She left one time and when she came back she was mentally unstable, breaks all the windows, doing extreme self-mutilation, that's how the killers found her before they killed her
  • Riley Murphy was investigating the Genovese family. The Genovese crime family is one of the "Five Families" that controls organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra). The Genovese crime family has been nicknamed the "Ivy League" and "Rolls Royce" of organized crime. They are rivaled in size by only the Gambino crime family and Chicago Outfit and are unmatched in terms of power. They have generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside of New York, including ties with the Patriarca, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and Philadelphia crime families.
    Finding new ways to make money in the 21st century, the Genovese family took advantage of lax due diligence by banks during the housing spike with a wave of mortgage frauds. Prosecutors say loan shark victims obtained home equity loans to pay off debts to their mob bankers. The family found ways to use new technology to improve on old reliable illegal gambling, with customers placing bets through offshore sites via the Internet. The modern family was founded by Lucky Luciano, but after 1957 it was renamed after boss Vito Genovese. Originally in control of the waterfront on the West Side of Manhattan (including the Fulton Fish Market), the family was run for years by "the Oddfather", Vincent " the Chin" Gigante, who feigned insanity by shuffling unshaven through New York’s Greenwich Village wearing a tattered bath robe and muttering to himself incoherently.
  • Yuna Harada - While performing “Ishtar’s Perfume” on Riley’s head, Yuna carved the symbol into her own body completely unaware when she was doing it.
  • Chinelo Obi - It appears that someone with impressive technical capabilities is systematically removing all attempts to communicate about the Symbol and unusual findings surrounding it from the internet. Websites are shut down, users locked out of their accounts, images deleted, and links invalidated. Even Chinelo's social media accounts and followers who attempted to look into the matter as part of a consolidated group effort found themselves frozen out of their accounts. In lesser news, she's acquired the final moments of Riley Murphy in the warehouse leading up to her death.
  • Yuna Harada - The symbol is a window. The center line is blue and it represents where the water meets the sky. The w is possibly on a boat somewhere. Yuna felt the room with the window tilt like a boat that is capsizing.
  • Claude Salazar - Claude came into direct contact with Yuna and the symbol did not spread to him.
  • Yuna Harada - While trying to help victims of the deck collapse at the Haunt, Yuna's consciousness was pulled halfway out of her body and she was overwhelmed with the urge to "help" the people in the water experience the same serenity she had. This resulted in her starting to drown people, unawares. Zahira was able to snap her out of it, but the Symbol carved on her body was hot and burning at the time.
  • Hector Ramirez - Hector met with Eduardo Genovese who claims that the drug Ghost Rider is NOT being manufactured or sold by the Genovese and, in fact, they are interested in stamping out its creation and distribution. Eduardo says that Ghost Rider has lasting effects on those that use it, having killed several people, and those who survive are "not the same" after. Hector has made a deal to trade information, despite the fact that Eduardo is part of the enforcer branch of the Genovese that has been infected by the Symbol, in effort to be rid of Ghost Rider and to trade Tony back to Eduardo.
  • Hector Ramirez - The crew (not to be confused with the krewe) met Veda Rivera, one of the women taken to the Underworld for sacrifice who is now one of the Bound, who told them that the Underworld is drawing three times the Essence it normally does from its inhabitants, devouring ghosts at an alarming rate. There seems to be a hole in the Ocean of Fragments. The sacrifices seem to be meant to generate ghosts and Essence enough to plug the hole in the Ocean and stop the drain on the Underworld. She says that are potentially thousands of women still in the Underworld, waiting to be sacrificed, and the crew decides that this cannot be a problem that only affects New York. Veda also mentions that many of the women are being held at a location in the Underworld called the Trainyard.
  • Hector Ramirez - Visiting September Mace with Ariane Fahari, we have discovered that the Genovese seem to have split into a civil war, with the enforcers beginning to worship the Symbol and becoming violent fanatics. A split from their forces, Tony, who has been possessed by a ghost (one involved in the summoning of the Cthnonian Serpent at the Green Point Terminal Marketplace), had begun to use sex trafficking to supply sacrifices (see above!). While he has since been taken by the Sin-Eaters, he was working with a Mitchell "Mimic" Connelly, who also works at Long and Short Moving in Brooklyn, and who the Sin-Eaters believe can supply them with more answers in regards of the mysterious ghost crew gathering women for sacrifice and spreading the use of Ghost Rider through the city.
  • Hector Ramirez - Hector met with Spectre and uncovered that the Symbol is not just a New York problem, but it has been happening around the world, typically in places with higher populations or death rates. Spectre announces that they have been scrubbing social media and the like to remove references and images of the Symbol. Spectre also agrees to contact Sin-Eaters in other areas to attempt to organize a unified effort in rescuing the women intended as sacrifices from the Underworld. Interestingly, Spectre also reveals that the Symbol has been a part of raising the dead in terms of animals and shares an illustration of an undead cat eating a dog.
  • Hector Ramirez - Hector met with Anna Raines and has developed a program to help rehabilitate people that have been taken to the Underworld during this incident. After working together, they have passed this program on to Spectre to the rest of the Sin-Eaters to aid in rehab efforts around the globe. (Anyone returning from the Underworld that has been a victim of this situation will receive a +5 bonus to their rehabilitation efforts.)
  • Wesley Lockwood - Wes met with Hector Ramirez, Marcus Caulfield-Brooks, Yuna Harada, and Uma Szymon to determine the best way to help their flatlining fellow Sin-Eater Chinelo Obi and end the spread of the signal. Looking through old journals suggested this was a transitional period between Keberoi in the domain below. Finding and shifting the power to a new host would likely stop the spread of the signal. The information for how to do so would likely be found in a Dead Domain known as The Vault. The location of The Vault is rumored to be known by David Ester. It was also determined that confronting Chinelo's Geist with its bane would force it back to its Sin-Eater, though to do so would likely put it into conflict with those nearby. Nobody likes being forced to do anything.
  • Hector Ramirez - Hector, Wesley Lockwood, and Yuna Harada interrogated the ghost that was bound in Tony's body. The ghost told them that they and the rest of the ghost ritualists are attempting to give Essence to the Leviathan in the form of the sacrificial women taken to the Underworld, but that Ghost Rider is their emergency plan should the Underworld eat itself: forged by the ghost, Ghost Rider allows any ghost to immediately Claim a victim who has taken the drug. It also claims that the Kerberoi have become anxious due to the cries of the Leviathan and have entered our world to potentially begin claiming victims as well, the ghost stating that it had seen a few in New York just weeks ago. Through the use of a few ceremonies, the Sin-Eaters were able to drive the ghost out of Tony's body. The ghost is being held for the time being, while Tony is being ushered out of the city for fear of his life being taken by the Genovese (or assorted other people pissed at him from the ghost's actions).
  • Natalie Reitnauer began investigating the Ghost Rider drug around January 12th. She learned that the main pusher for the Ghost Rider drug was a man named Tony, which rumour said was highly connected with the Genovese Crime family. Tony has since disappeared, probably because the Genovese aren't fond of unsanctioned experimental drugs. Drug distribution has now fallen into the hands of a woman named Jezebel, who seems to be selling it out of a condemned motel in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. This is a particular seedy area that is extremely dangerous to go to alone - hint hint. From Vinegar Hill, the drug is being distributed to night clubs, and now scarily enough in schools! Colleges and high schools are seeing high numbers of confiscation. Also an alarming rate of runaways the authorities believe is tied to the epidemic.

Count Me In

Current Objectives

A DYING LEVIATHAN: Sort out how to stop the Leviathan from spreading the Symbol.

Accomplishments So Far

THE TRAIN YARD: Rescue the women left in the Underworld

Accomplishments So Far

GHOST RIDER: Clear the drug off the streets.

Accomplishments So Far

GHOST RIDER: Helping the victims.

Accomplishments So Far

ACROSS THE WIRES: Connect with others among the Twilight Network.

Accomplishments So Far

THE RED HOUSE: Cleaning up the mess with the Genovese.

Accomplishments So Far

WALKING DEAD: The dead have begun to rise. Greenwood needs patrols.

Accomplishments So Far

RECOVERING RUINED ART: A painting which includes the Symbol is affecting its patrons.

Accomplishments So Far

Past Scenes / RP Logs

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